Rail Transportation and PipelinesAuthors: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue and Dr. Brian Slack1. Rail Transportation and Rail LinesRail transportation refer to the movement of on guideways. The most
common guideways are rails, but recent technological developments have
also made available monorails as was as magnetic levitation trains. Although primitive rail systems existed by the 17th century to move
materials in quarries and mines, it is not until the early 19th century
that the first real rail transportation systems came into existence.
Rail transportation has been the product of the industrial era, playing
a major role in the economic development of Western Europe, North
America and Japan, where such systems were first massively
implemented. It represented a major improvement in land transport
technology and has obviously introduced important changes in the movement
of freight and passengers. This was not necessarily because of
its capacity to carry heavy
loads, since maritime transportation excelled at doing so, but because
of its higher level of ubiquity and its speed. Rail transport systems dramatically improved travel
time as well as the possibility to offer reliable and consistent schedules that
could be included in the planning of economic activities such as production
and distribution. The coherence of economic activities and social interactions
was thus substantially improved.With the introduction of the steam locomotive in 1829, a mechanized
land transport system became available for the first time. However,
geography played an important role in the nature and function of the
first rail systems. According
to the geographical settings, rail lines
were established differently because of the variety of strategies to
be achieved, namely access to resources (penetration lines), servicing regional economies
(regional networks) and to achieve territorial control
(transcontinental lines). The first rail lines to be built
were portage segments within canal systems or routes aiming at
complementing existing canals and filling their service gaps. Because of
its cost and time advantages, rail was able to supplant canal services
in inland transportation to become the main driver of spatial change in
industrializing regions of the world.The capital intensiveness of building and operating rail
services required the setting of corporations. The first railway companies were
mainly point to point ventures with the company often taking the name
of the serviced destinations. As the rail system expanded, several mergers
took place, which lead to rather peculiar semantic results. For instance
BNSF Railway (Burlington Northern Santa Fe; the company uses the acronym
to avoid confusion), a major rail operator in the western part of
the United States, is the outcome of some 390 different railroad lines
that merged or were acquired over a period of more than 150 years.Rail transportation is characterized by a high level of economic
and territorial control since most rail companies are operating in situation
of monopoly, as in Europe, or oligopoly, as in North America
where seven large rail freight carriers control and operate large
networks. Operating a rail system involves using regular (scheduled),
but rigid, services. Rail transportation, like roads, has an important
relationship with space, since it is the transport mode the most
constrained by the physiography. These constraints are mainly technical
and operational:

Space consumption. Rail transportation has a low level
of space consumption along lines, but its terminals are can
occupy large portions of real estate, especially in urban areas. This increases operation
costs substantially. Still, rail terminals tend to be centrally
located and accessible. A major issue concerns rights of way
that represent a significant sunk costs for rail, which has
fixed the network structure and impede future developments
because of the difficulty of securing them along corridors.

Gradient and turns. Rail transport is particularly
susceptible to the heterogeneity of the geography, which imposes
constraints such a gradient and track alignment. Rail transportation can support a
gradient of up to 4% (e.g. 40 meters per kilometer), but freight
trains rarely tolerate more than 1%. This implies that an operational
freight rail line requires 50 kilometers to climb 500 meters.
Gradient are also important as they involve more energy
consumption, particularly for freight trains traveling over long
distances. For
turns, the minimal curvature radius is 100 meters, but radiuses
of 1 km for a speed of 150 km/hr and 4 km for a speed of 300 km/hr
are needed.

Vehicles. For traction, the locomotion technology
ranges from steam (almost abandoned), to diesel (mainly for
freight in the United States) and electric (mainly for
passengers in Europe). Rail transportation is very flexible in terms
of vehicles and there is a wide variety of them filling different
purposes. Among the most common vehicle assets are open wagons
(hopper cars) used for bulk cargo (e.g. minerals), box cars to
carry general and refrigerated goods, and tank cars to carry
liquids. Intermodal transportation has also permitted the
development of a new class of flat railcars that can carry
containers and trailers (less common). The recent trend has thus been
towards a specialization
of freight wagons, such as hopper wagons (grain, potash and fertilizers),
triple hopper wagons (sand, gravel, sulfur and coal), flat wagons
(wood, agricultural equipment, manufactured goods, containers),
tanker wagons (petrochemical products), box wagons (livestock, paper,
manufactured goods, refrigerated goods), car wagons and passengers wagons
(first class, second class, third class cabins, sleeper cars,
restaurant cars).

Gauge. They are
heterogeneous across jurisdictions since because of historical
and political reasons, different nations and regions have
adopted different gauges. The standard gauge of 1.435 meters has been adopted
in many parts of the world, across North America and most of Western
Europe for example. It accounts for about 60% of the railways. But other gauges have been adopted in other
areas, such as the broad gauge (1.520 meters) in Russia and
Eastern Europe accounting for about 17% of the railways. This makes
the integration of rail services complex, since both freight
and passengers are required to change from one railway system to
the other. As attempts are being made to extend rail services across
continents and regions, this is an important obstacle, as for example
between France and Spain, Eastern and Western Europe, and between
Russia and China. The potential of the Eurasian land bridge is
impaired
in part by these gauge differences.

Network structure. Relates to the ownership
of tracks and rolling stock, maximum train length, signaling
equipment, maintenance schedule and the traffic mix. These
factors will influence the capacity of the rail system,
particularly if well managed. When tracks are privately owned,
the operator is free to allocate its services without much
competitive hindrance. However, if the tracks are publically
owned, they are often reserved for a national rail carrier or
service slots are leased to private operators through a bidding
process.

Other factors that inhibit the movement of trains between different
countries include signaling and electrification standards. These are
particular problems for the European Union where the lack of "interoperability"
of the rail systems between the member states is a factor limiting the
wider use of the rail mode. There is also a trend where the passengers
and freight markets are being separated. First, it is occurring at
the management level. The liberalization of the railway system that
is being forced by the European Commission is resulting in the
separation of passenger and freight operations. This had already
taken place in the UK when British Rail was privatized. Second, the
move towards high speed passenger rail services necessitated the
construction of separate rights of way for the high speed trains. This has
tended to move passenger train services from the existing tracks,
thereby opening up more daytime slots for freight trains. Third, the
Dutch completed in 2007 a freight only track, the Betuwe Line, from the
port of Rotterdam to the German border, having already sold the
freight business of the Netherlands railway (NS) to DB, and having
opened up the freight business to other firms.It is often possible to combine rail transportation with road transportation,
simply by carrying trailers. This is called "piggy back" and it is increasingly
used to efficiently combine the inland potentials of rail and road transportation.
The most flexible is obviously the RO-RO (Roll On – Roll Off) method
where the tractor and the trailer are directly loaded on a rail platform.
The driver usually rolls in with an outbound carriage and rolls out
with an inbound carriage. Overall, rail
transportation is more efficient than road transportation, although
its main drawback is flexibility as traffic must follow fixed routes
and transshipment must be done at terminals.2. The Spatial Economy of Rail TransportationThe ability of trains to haul large quantities of goods and significant
numbers of people over long distances is the mode’s primary asset. Once
the cars have been assembled or the passengers have boarded, trains
can offer a high capacity service at a reasonable speed (with some
high speed systems). It was this
feature that led to the train’s pre-eminence in opening the interior
of the continents in the 19th century, and is still its major asset.
With containerized unit trains, economies of scale can be readily been
achieved while road have limited ability to benefit from this
advantage. Each additional
container being carried by road involves the same marginal cost increase,
while for rail there is a declining marginal cost per additional
container until the unit train size is reached.
The same applies to passengers as for road transportation, an
additional movement usually involves an additional vehicle, while
for rail there is declining marginal costs as a passenger train gets
filled. Passenger service is is thus effective where population densities are high.
Freight traffic is dominated by
bulk cargo shipments, agricultural and industrial raw materials in particular.
Rail transport is a green inland mode, in that its consumption of energy
per unit load per km is lower than road modes.The initial capital costs of rail are high because the construction of rail
tracks and the provision of rolling stock are expensive. Historically,
the investments have been made by the same source (either governments
or the private sector). These expenditures have to be made before any
revenues are realized and thus represent important entry barriers that
tend to limit the number of operators. It also serves to delay innovation,
compared with road transport, since rail rolling stock has a service
life of at least twenty years. This can also be an advantage since the rolling
stock is more durable and offer better opportunities at amortization.
On average, rail companies need to invest about 45% of their operating
revenues each year in capital and maintenance expenses of their infrastructure
and equipment. Capital expenditures
alone account for about 17% of revenue, while this share is around 3
to 4% for manufacturing activities. One successful strategy to deal
with high capital expenditures has been the setting of equipment
pools such as TTX in North America that account for about 70% of the
intermodal railcar assets used by North American rail companies.Since the end of the 1950s, railway systems in advanced economies
have faced an increasing competition from road transport,
with varying results. In all cases, the breakeven distance,
which is a threshold
above which rail becomes most cost effective than road, was changed
to the advantage of road transport. The more efficient road transport
became, the higher its breakeven distance. In the current context, the breakeven distance between intermodal rail and
truck is between 600 and 800 miles (950 and 1,300 km). Under 500
miles (800 km), drayage costs from the terminal usually account for
for 70% of total costs.In several countries such as China, India, and Japan,
rail transportation accounts for the majority of interurban passenger
transportation. Among developed countries, there are
acute
geographical differences in the economic
preference of rail transportation. For Europe, China and Japan rail transportation is
still very important, mainly for passenger transportation, but has declined
over the last decades. High-speed passenger rail projects are however
improving its popularity, but the competition was mainly being felt
on air transportation services rather than road transport. For North America, rail transportation is
strictly related to freight, with passengers playing a marginal role
only along a few major urban corridors. Passenger
trains are even getting delayed because priority is given to
freight. It is only in the northeastern part of the United States that
passenger services are running on time since Amtrak (the federally owned
passenger rail operator) owns the tracks.Even if rail transportation was primarily developed to service national
economies, globalization is having significant impacts on rail freight
systems. These impacts are scale specific:

At the macro scale, new long distance alternatives are
emerging in the form of
land bridges
in North America and between Europe and Asia. In North America,
rail has been very successful at servicing long distance intermodal
markets, underlining the efficiency of rail over long distance and
high volume flows.

At the meso scale, the railway transportation network
is influenced by the pattern of energy consumption. Many countries
still rely overwhelmingly on foreign suppliers for their source
of fuel while other are building major fuel moving transport arteries.
Another important trend has been the growing integration of rail
and maritime transport systems. Rail transportation has thus become
the extension of maritime supply chains. A key issue is the concentration
of investments in shaping rail corridors.

At the micro scale, extended
metropolitan regions reveals a specialization of rail traffic as
well as a transfer of certain types of commodities from the rail
network to the fluvial and road network systems. Railways servicing
ports increasingly tend to concentrate container movements. This strategy followed by rail transport operators allows
on the one hand, an increase in the delivery of goods and on the
other hand, the establishment of door-to-door services through a
better distribution of goods among different transport modes.

Rail freight services are also facing the challenge of
improving their reliability, which leads to a
fragmentation of the types of services being offered. For
conventional rail freight markets such as coal, grain, forest
products or chemicals, the priority has consistently been the
provision of high capacity and low cost forms of transportation.
However, these services were unreliable but could be easily
accommodated by stockpiling, a strategy common in the resource
sector (e.g. power plants,
grain elevators). An emerging freight market for rail mostly
concern intermodal services that require a much higher level of
reliability, similar to what is expected in trucking. Commercial
changes such as large volumes of retail import containerized
cargo and just in time manufacturing require high reliability
levels. 3. Rail Transportation in the 21st CenturyAlthough railways are a product of the industrial revolution, they has been affected by continuous innovations, technical,
regulatory
and commercial changes which have improved their capacity and
efficiency. Rail transportation is thus as important in the 21st century
as it was in the late 19th century. One innovation relates to the
quality of the rail infrastructure, particularly rail tracks (e.g.
better steel, concrete ties), which will determine the operational
characteristics of their use such as speed, permitted weight,
maintenance and resilience to the environment. Increasing
electrification and automation will also improve the efficiency of rail
transportation, passenger and freight alike. A few new rail lines are
being built, but mainly in developing countries. Railway speed records
have constantly improved with the introduction of high speed rail
systems. For instance, portions of the French high
speed rail system (also known as TGV: Tres Grande Vitesse) can reach
speeds up to 515 km/hr. Variable wheel-base axles permit rail transport
between different gauges. However, freight trains run at a considerably
lower speed, in the range of 30-35 km/hr. In some cases, as the rail
system gets more used, operational speed may decline because of
congestion.Longer and heavier rail coupled with major engineering achievements allow
the suppression of natural obstacles, which enhance network continuity.
The Seikan tunnel between the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido in Japan
has a length of 53.8 kilometers while the Channel tunnel between France
and England reaches 50.5 kilometers. One of the most technically challenging
rail segment ever built was completed in 2006 in China. The 1,142 kilometers
line links Golmud in Qinghai province to Lhasa in Tibet. Some parts
go through permafrost and altitudes of 16,000 feet, conferring its status
of the world's highest rail line. Rail transport has comparative advantages
in carrying heavy bulk traffic on specific itineraries over long distances.
For instance, a 10 car freight train can carry as much cargo as 600
trucks. Beside its emphasis on safety and reliability, rail transport
favors the fast commuting of suburbanites during peak hours and has
become an important mode supporting passenger movements in large cities.The global trend involves the closure of unprofitable lines as well
as the elimination of several stops. Over the last 50 years, with downsizing
of rail transportation, while traffic was moving to other modes, rail
companies abandoned lines (or sold them to local rail companies), removed
excess terminals and warehousing capacity and sold off property. The
process of rationalization (deregulation) of the rail network is now
completed in a number of countries, such as in the
United States. This has implied significant
labor savings with the reduction of train crews (from 3-4 to 2), more
flexible working hours and the usage of subcontractors for construction
and maintenance. In addition to energy efficient (the fuel efficiency
of locomotives has increased by 68% between 1980 and 2000) and lighter
equipment, the usage of double-stack cars has revolutionized
rail transportation with additional fuel efficiency and cost reductions
of about 40%. Depending on the service and type of commodity carried
rail can be 1.9 to 5.5 more energy efficient than trucking. Unit trains, carrying one commodity-type only, allow
scale economies and efficiencies in bulk shipments, and double stacking
has greatly promoted the advantages of rail for container shipments.Trends concerning cargo transport using trailers on flat cars
(TOFC) and containers on flat cars (COFC) well illustrate the
increasing adoption of intermodal transport. Still, TOFC services
are being phased down and COFC increasingly dominates.
An active market for niche services such as
Roadrailers mounting truck trailers as train convoys remains. Due to its great versatility,
the container is highly favored as such a means of cargo transport;
loading trailers unto rail cars is prone to inefficiencies,
particularly a much lower load factor than containers.
Double-stack rail technology is a major challenge for the rail transport
system as it is effective for long distances where additional
terminal costs are compensated by lower transport costs. North
America has a notable advantage over Europe on this issue since a full
double-stacked unit train can carry between 500 and 600 TEU (200 to
300 containers) and can have a length exceeding 10,000 feet (about 3,000
meters). European trains are generally limited to 750 meters while
some rail segments can accommodate 850 meters. Further, most railroads were constructed early in the 20th
century and have an overhead clearance that is inadequate for the usage
of double-stack trains. This is notably the case for tunnels and bridges.
Even if improving clearance is a major investment, several rail companies,
notably in North America, have invested massively on
double-stacking
projects. The economies and improved
capacity of double-stacking have justified investments of raising the
clearance from 5.33 meters (17’6") to 8.1 meters (20’6") along major
long distance rail corridors. Europe is less advanced in this process
because most of its rail facilities were built in the middle of the
19th century. Clearance thus forbids the usage of double-stacking on
most European rail corridors.The emergence of high-speed rail networks and increasing rail
speed had significant impacts on passengers transportation, especially
in Europe and Japan (high speed freight
trains are not currently being considered; see
Application 1
for a more detailed overview). For instance, the French TGV has an operational
speed of about 300 km/h. High-speed passenger trains require special
lines, but can also use the existing lines at a lower speed. In many
cases it permitted a separation between rail passenger traffic rolling
at high speed and freight traffic using the conventional rail network.
The efficiency of both the passengers and freight rail network was thus
improved significantly. Since high-speed trains require some time to
accelerate and decelerate, the average distance between stations has
increased significantly, by-passing several
centers of less importance. Over average distances, they have proved
to be able to compete effectively with
air transportation. Other strategies include improving the speed
of existing passenger services without building a high speed
corridor. This involves upgrading the equipment and improving the
infrastructure at specific locations along the corridor. The
benefits of offering a passenger rail service about 120 km/h can be
substantial to improve the quality and efficiency of inter-city
services in high density urban regions.4. PipelinesPipelines are an extremely important and extensive mode of land transport,
although very rarely appreciated or recognized by the general public,
mainly because they are buried underground or under the sea as in the
case of gas pipelines from North Africa to Europe. In the United
States, for example,
there are 409,000 miles of pipelines that carry 17% of all ton/miles
of freight. Two main products dominate pipeline traffic: oil and
gas, although locally pipelines are significant for the transport
of water, and in some rare cases for the shipment of dry bulk commodities,
such as coal in the form of slurry. Pipelines can even be used to
carry small quantities of freight, such as in pneumatic tubes, but this
use remains marginal and for short distances.Pipelines are almost everywhere designed for a specific purpose
only, to carry one commodity from a location to another. They are
built largely with private capital and because the system has to be in
place before any revenues are generated, represent a significant capital
commitment. They are effective in transporting large quantities of
products where no other feasible means of transport (usually water) is
available. Pipeline routes tend to link isolated areas of production to
major refining and manufacturing centers in the case of oil, or to major
populated areas, as in the case of natural gas.The routing of pipelines is largely indifferent to terrain, although
environmental concerns frequently delay approval for construction. In
sensitive areas, particularly in arctic/sub-arctic areas where the pipes
cannot be buried because of permafrost, the impacts on migratory wild-life
may be severe, and be sufficient to deny approval, as was the case of
the proposed McKenzie Valley pipeline in Canada in the 1970s. The 1,300
km long Trans Alaskan pipeline was built under difficult conditions
and is above the ground for most of its path. Geo-political factors
play a very important role in the routing of pipelines that cross international
boundaries. Pipelines from the Middle East to the Mediterranean have
been routed to avoid Israel, and new pipelines linking Central Asia
with the Mediterranean are being routed in response to the ethnic and
religious mosaic of the republics in the Caucasus.Pipeline construction costs vary according to the diameter and increase
proportionally with the distance and with the viscosity of fluids (need
for pumping stations). Operating costs are very low, however, and as
mentioned above, pipelines represent a very important mode for the transport
of liquid and gaseous products. One major disadvantage of pipelines
is the inherent inflexibility of the mode. Once built (usually at great
expense), expansion of demand is not easily adjusted to. There are specific
limits to the carrying capacity. Conversely a lessening of supply or
demand will produce a lowering of revenues that may affect the viability
of the system. A further limit arises out of geographical shifts in
production or consumption, in which a pipeline having been built from
a location to another may not be able to easily adjust to changes. For
example, the refineries in Montreal, Canada, were served by a pipeline
from Portland, Maine in order to receive shipments year-round because
of ice on the St. Lawrence River. In the 1980s a pipeline from western
Canada was built to provide domestic crude oil at a time when the price
of the international supply was escalating. Since then the Portland
pipeline has been lying idle.

Media
World Rail Network and Rail Systems
Major Gauges of the Global Rail Systems
World High Speed Rail Systems
American Rail Network, 1861
Economic Rationale of Rail Transportation
Comparison Between European, North American and Pacific Asian Railways
Spatial Performance of Rail and Road Transportation
Percent of Rail Passenger Traffic to Total Rail Traffic, 2000
World Rail Freight Traffic
World Rail Passenger Traffic
Capital Expenditures as % of Revenue
Rail Track Mileage and Number of Class I Rail Carriers, United States,
1830-2012
Ownership of Major North American Rail Lines
Market Share of US Intermodal Rail, 2006
40-Foot Containers Doublestacked on a Rail Car
Composition of the North American Intermodal Rail Fleet
Major North American Rail Corridors Improved since 2000
The Heartland Corridor
Triple Crown Intermodal Network
Average Speed of Class I Railroads, 1945-2004
American Intermodal Rail Traffic
Types and Functions of Rail Freight Corridors
Distance, Modal Choice and Transport Costs
Road / Rail Transloading The
Alameda Rail Corridor
Number of Trains Running Through the Alameda Corridor per Year and
Containers Handled by the San Pedro Bay Port Cluster
The Northern East-West Freight Corridor
Development of High Speed Train Traffic, Europe and Japan
Travel Times before and after the Introduction of a High Speed Train
Service
Restructuring Effect of High Speed Rail
Modal Share Madrid-Seville before and after the Introduction of
a High Speed Train (AVE)
Oil and Gas Pipelines Mileage in the United States, 1960-2002